Marcelo RÃos
Marcelo Andrés Ríos Mayorga ( born December 26, 1975 in Santiago de Chile ) is a former Chilean tennis player. In his career, he won 18 singles titles. He also reached the final of the 1998 Australian Open. For six weeks leading Ríos to the tennis world rankings.
Career
Ríos began eleven years of playing tennis and was already in his youth to the world's best players. He won the 1993 U.S. Open and finished the season # 1 in the junior world rankings. A year later, the Chilean began his professional career and was in his first season, a tournament the Challenger Series to decide for themselves. The year 1994 he finished just behind the top 100 in the men's world rankings.
In 1995, Ríos in Bologna his first title on the ATP Tour. It was followed by two more tournament wins in Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur so that he finished the season ranked 25th in the world rankings. Even if he could decide just another tournament for itself in the following season, Rios managed in the meantime made it into the top 10 contributors to this development of three -final and semi-finals in tournaments of Super 9 series (now Masters Series ) significantly with. At the French Open Ríos was also the first to move into the second round of a Grand Slam tournament. In 1997 he won in Monte Carlo for the first time a Super 9 tournament and he held this season with four other finals predominantly in the top 10, rank 6 was his best finish. In all four Grand Slam tournaments he reached at least the round of sixteen, in Melbourne and in New York, he was beaten in the quarterfinals each of the world number two Michael Chang. The season ended Ríos ranked 10th in the world rankings.
With the season followed in 1998 the most successful year of his professional career. After the opening win in Auckland he reached the final of the Australian Open, where he lost to the locked afterwards for doping Czechs Petr Korda smooth. In the rest of the season Ríos won six tournaments and managed on 30 March 1998 the leap to the top of the world rankings, he was able to keep four weeks before Pete Sampras regained the position. In August Ríos led another two weeks, the world ranking to long. By year's end he remained in striking distance, but at the ATP World Championships he had after the first match to cancel his further participation. Nevertheless Ríos finished the season ranked second in 1999, he could not win three more tournaments, reached at the Grand Slam tournaments but only in Paris the quarterfinals. So he fell in the rankings back to 8th place.
As of the 2000 season health problems began to affect his career. In Croatia he won his only tournament of the season, which he finished at No. 37. After a good start to the season in Doha with his 17th career title in 2001 Ríos had suffered numerous first - and second-round defeats. His 18th and final career title in Hong Kong could not prevent he lost two more world ranking places the year. 2002, it remained after seven years the first time without title, but with several semi-finals and quarter-finals of the Australian Open he could work your way into the top 25 again. A year later he had his last season appearance in July; the rest of the season, which he finished outside the top 100, Ríos had to cancel due to injury.
In 2004, he attempted a comeback after a seven -month break, but failed in Challenger tournaments twice in the second round. His last professional game he played in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, where he gave up his second round match against Argentina's Mariano Delfino at the registry of 7:5, 3:6.
Since 2006, Ríos plays regularly on the ATP Champions Tour. He finished the 2006 season, during which he won six tournaments, there as number 1, 2007, he planned to participate in a professional tournament in Vina del Mar, he said his participation but due to a back injury from.
Personal
His father is the businessman Jorge Ríos Jarvis and his mother the teacher Alicia Mayorga. Marcelo Ríos has an older sister named Paula.
In December 2000 he married in Santiago, the Costa Rican Giuliana Sotela that he had met while training at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. 2001 his daughter Constanza was born. 2004 his marriage was annulled. During this time, Marcelo Ríos worked for a Chilean radio station. In 2005, he married María Eugenia Larraín the model. This second marriage was but divorced after only five months.